Gutenberg’s printing press. Columbus set sail in 1492. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The moon landing.
Rarely does an event feel so monumental that it promises to change the course of the world as we know it.
But on November 2it felt like one of those moments: the Indian women’s cricket team won the World Cup. Okay, maybe not on the level of Gutenberg or the moon landing, but you get the idea. Some moments carry an emotional power that transcends the game itself.
India has long been referred to as the ‘Sleeping Giant’ of world sport, a country of great passion and population that is still far from realizing its global potential. We are reminded of this with every passing FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games. But even within cricket, India’s most popular sport, women’s cricket remained the final frontier.
This was not an underdog story like Kapil Dev’s men of ’83. There were expectations for the homeland, overshadowed by past disappointments. A semi-final run felt realistic, but beating this world-class Australian side? Let’s be honest: not many people have dreamed that far.
And yet here we are.
It was not a flawless campaign by any means. This was an imperfect victory, and that’s what made it so special. Three defeats in a row. Mandhana and Harmanpreet are not at their best early on. In-form Pratika Rawal is injured on the eve of the semi-finals. The public that turns against the team on social media. We had seen this story before.
But when Jemimah Rodrigues battled her inner demons to script an unforgettable semi-final chase, every run she made held a nation’s breath. Her silky cover glides across the field, the hunger burning fiercely in her eyes, and that smiling face, the charming grace that masks the depths of fear, self-doubt, and the what-ifs. She stretched her mind and body to their limits because she knew she had to see it through and stay the course until the end. Oh, that muddy sweater, I’ll never forget that.
Then came Shafali Verma, the fallen-from-favor young star who met at that time. Dancing around the pitch, hitting sixes on the ground, taking magical wickets that turned the tide as if pressure meant nothing to her.
And when the always positive Amanjot Kaur sprinted in for Laura Wolvaardt’s catch…drop, catch, drop and catch again, that’s when we finally started to believe in it.
Every player stood up and in the field they put their bodies on the play and dived around the boundary. Lifting the trophy in the presence of Diana Edulji, Anjum Chopra and other pioneers, bringing in Rawal in a wheelchair and celebrating with Mithali Raj and Jhulani Goswami, this was poetic justice.
Deserved world champions, a team whose grit, grace and courage have the power to set the nation on fire.
The barrier has now been broken.
Just think of the impact this victory will have on Indian sporting culture and even on the social fabric of India. Somewhere in a small town, a mother realizes that her daughter can dream bigger than she ever dreamed. Somewhere in a boardroom, an executive is finally questioning the pay disparity. Somewhere in the stands, the fate of a young girl, who dreamed of becoming the next Richa Ghosh or Shree Charani, was changed, inspired by World Cup heroines like Deepti Sharma.
Change will not come overnight.
But this evening it started.
This is part of a new series of short articles, where I’m trying to aim for 500 words and make every word count. This ended at 549 words.
BCD#405 © Copyright @Nitesh Mathur and Broken Cricket Dreams, LLC 2023. Originally published 10/26/2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Broken Cricket Dreams with appropriate and specific direction to the original content (i.e. linked to the exact post/article).
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